Rockin' the gaff

Just last month, Bell X1 sold out two dates in Dublin’s 1,600-capacity Vicar St. venue, but only 22 punters have been allowed entry to Annette Geraghty’s front-room in Maynooth for what is bound to be the sweetest show of the trio’s career.

It was always going to be awkward landing on someone’s doorstep and setting up shop for the night. Even team Hot Press (who’ve been party to many a madcap scheme over the years) is feeling a bit giddy as we buzz around the Geraghty residence, chatting to guests and pilfering their wine.
The joyful strumming coming from the back garden turns out to be the neighbour’s son and his band (later identified as alt. rock five piece Saul), who are passing the time by knocking out a couple of tunes. But competition winner Sinéad Loughman is undeniably the lady of the moment, even if she’s been forced to host the show in her sister’s house due to the, eh, cosy nature of her own Dublin
city apartment.
I grab a few words with the starry-eyed Galway lass as she flits between answering the doorbell and refilling the crisp bowls.
“I’ve loved Bell X1 since early 2003,” she says. “I went to see them in the Olympia with my friend Anna, who’s here tonight, and I’ve really loved them since then. I’ve been to I don’t know how many gigs!”
But let’s not forget why we’re swapping stories in this particular kitchen tonight; Sinéad’s entry caught Hot Press’ eye simply because it was so damn strange. It read, “I want Bell X1 to play a gig in my gaff because the last time I met Paul I was holding a cabbage, and I’d like the chance to explain why.”
“It was for a treasure hunt for work,” she laughs, “and I had to pick something green and Irish. Me and Anna are on George’s St., I’ve got my cabbage, and we run into Bell X1! We couldn’t talk, so we just stood there like idiots.”
Sinéad finishes her story just as Paul Noonan, Dave Geraghty and Dominic Philips rock up to the front-door. A couple of spirited hellos later, and they’re setting up around an upright piano, upon which Sinéad has thoughtfully placed three Easter eggs, a few packets of biscuits and, obviously, a cabbage. Now might be a good time to explain, I point out.
“Maybe later,” she giggles.
Once we’ve settled ourselves on various soft items on the sitting-room floor, it’s time to start the show. Paul, Dave and Dom open with ‘Pinball Machine’ from their debut album Neither Am I, and even though it’s been over a decade since we first heard the track, it sounds impossibly fresh. Paul’s in a particularly playful mood tonight.
“This feels a bit like being made to play recorder in front of my relations!” he grins (later, he’ll confess “It was the graduation and debs photographs on the walls that were freaking me out!”). Next, the boys launch into ‘Next To You’, cleverly souped-up with a few snippets of the positively banging ‘Miss Jackson’ by Outkast.
From there, we’re treated to ‘Slowset’ also from their 2000 debut, ‘Alphabet Soup’ from ,Music In Mouth, ‘Rocky Took A Lover’ and ‘Bad Skin Day’ from Flock, and ‘Velcro’, from their new album Bloodless Coup.
During a brief respite for tea and banter, the lads admit they’re very much feeling the low-key vibe.
“It’s easy to see why gigs like this are becoming more and more popular,” Dave says. “I never thought of doing it before, but I think it’s a great thing to do, to just rock into somebody’s gaff.”
“A lot of the songs were born exactly like this, in one of our gaffs,” Paul muses, “so it’s like returning to roots of some kind.”
Next on the setlist are oldies but goodies ‘Eve, The Apple Of My Eye, ‘West Of Her Spine’, and ‘Flame’ and Blue Lights On The Runway favourite ‘The Great Defector’. The bemused threesome finish up (not before Sinéad is coaxed into telling her cabbage story, naturally) with ‘I’ll See Your Heart And Raise You Mine’, which veers triumphantly into ‘There Is a Light That Never Goes Out’ by The Smiths.
If there’s anything to be learned from a career-spanning set like this, it’s that nobody, not even the great Moz, writes love songs quite like Bell X1 do. Charming lyrical nuggets like “I love the way your underwire bra always sets off that X-ray machine” yank particularly hard on the heartstrings tonight and, in a setting so intimate you can practically make out everyone’s individual heartbeat, a line like “Your flesh it melts in my mouth like Holy Communion” lands like a punch to the gut.
And nobody’s feeling the hit more than Sinéad.
“I’ll probably wake up tomorrow and go, ‘OK did that actually happen?’ It was so weird and strange and surreal at the same time,” she beams. “Surreal, but lovely.”